NEWARK, N.J. — Former Carport frontman Mikey Cooper, 42, is reportedly using his decades of experience exploring overdramatic themes to excel in his new role as a high school poetry teacher, somewhat starstruck faculty confirm.
“A lot of teachers try to relate to their students by explaining that ‘most rappers are actually’ poets, but I prefer a different route. I use the lyrics from my band’s 1997 masterpiece ‘Alone, Kansas’ to show off real poetic flair,” explained a surprisingly content Cooper. “My curriculum takes all that raw teenage self-loathing, love, insecurity, breakups, and filters it through what I learned while opening for quite possibly the best poet of the ‘90s, Jeremy Enigk of Sunny Day Real Estate. But breaking down ‘Diary’ is going to be for my AP class; the freshman can’t handle that level of anguish.”
Students born after the height of Carport’s mild success report being “pretty indifferent” to Cooper’s teaching style.
“I honestly can’t tell if this is the easiest class of all time, or if it’s all going right over my head. We spent the first two weeks of the semester listening to ‘We Cannot Read Poetry’ by some band called Piebald. Not once did we actually read any poetry,” said 16-year-old Justin Reidy. “We almost talked about Walt Whitman at one point, but then Mr. Cooper went off on a tangent about how drummers tend to write the most lyrics and how ex girlfriends can ruin your life. I have no idea what the final exam is going to be.”
School board representative and student psychologist, Amanda Gibson, wishes more teachers could connect with students like emo singers.
“Mr. Cooper found success as a teenager using passionate, sentimental teenage themes, so naturally he stuck with this winning formula into his early forties,” explains Ms. Gibson. “That, plus being surrounded by overemotional bandmates and teenage fans, kept him steeped in adolescence. We’ll keep an eye on him around all these teenage girls, but so far it seems like he’s really helping to keep the dramatic highs and lows of the teenage experience on the page.”
Mr. Cooper’s success in Poetry inspired Principle Patterson to seek out Rage Against The Machine’s Zach De La Rocha to teach the school’s Political Sciences class.